About Me

AddFreeStats

Sunday, 19 August 2012

When the terrorist attacks began on September 11, 2001, numerous U.S. intelligence agencies and facilities that should have been closely following the catastrophic events taking place in the skies over America were unaware that anything was wrong. Because of their particular responsibilities and their advanced capabilities, agencies such as the FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA) should have been among the first to learn the details of the crisis. But, instead, they were apparently in an information blackout, and their knowledge of the attacks was limited to what they could learn from television reports.

The fact that key intelligence agencies and facilities experienced this problem, and all at the same time, suggests that the information blackout may have been intentional--an act of sabotage committed by the perpetrators of the attacks. Such an act could have been intended to render these agencies and facilities useless when their services were urgently needed, thereby helping to ensure that the attacks were successful.

MILITARY OFFICERS UNSUCCESSFULLY SOUGHT INFORMATION ABOUT THE ATTACKSThe lack of awareness of the crisis on September 11 is highlighted in the accounts of two military officers who contacted numerous facilities in their attempts to learn more about the attacks. These officers were Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stuart, an intelligence officer at NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), and Major David McNulty, the senior intelligence officer of the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia Air National Guard at Andrews Air Force Base. [1]

Stuart and McNulty's units had crucial roles to play on September 11. NEADS, based in Rome, New York, was responsible for coordinating the U.S. military's response to the hijackings. [2] And "air defense around Washington, DC," according to Knight Ridder, was provided "mainly by fighter planes from Andrews Air Force Base," which is just 10 miles from the capital. [3] The DC Air National Guard was in fact known as the "Capital Guardians." [4] It was therefore essential that Stuart and McNulty be provided with up-to-the-minute information on the attacks. That, however, did not happen.

NEADS was alerted to the first hijacking--that of American Airlines Flight 11--just before 8:38 a.m. on September 11, when an air traffic controller called to report the incident and request military assistance. [5] Beginning at around 8:48 a.m., Mark Stuart contacted several facilities to see if they had any information on the hijacking, beyond what he had already learned. These facilities included the FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center, the National Military Joint Intelligence Center, and the 1st Air Force headquarters. None of them could provide any additional information. A colleague of Stuart's checked the SIPRNET--the U.S. military Internet system--for relevant information, but also without success. [6]

At Andrews Air Force Base, about five minutes or so after he learned that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center (the crash occurred at 9:03 a.m.), McNulty went to his "intel vault" and began seeking relevant information. He too checked the SIPRNET. He called agencies such as the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA. He also called units such as the Air Combat Command Intelligence Squadron and the 609th Air Intelligence Squadron. But he was unable to find out anything more than he had already learned from television reports. [7]

Other accounts provide further details of the lack of awareness of the catastrophic events within the military and other government agencies. Indeed, the information blackout appears to have been almost universal. One government official commented that the U.S. was "deaf, dumb, and blind" for much of September 11. [8]

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS NOTICED EARLY SIGNS OF THE CRISISAlthough many key facilities were unaware of what was happening at the time the WTC towers were hit, indications of the crisis had been evident much earlier on. These indications were received or noticed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is responsible for operating the U.S. air traffic control system, or by American Airlines.

The first sign that something was wrong came nearly 33 minutes before Flight 11 crashed into the WTC, when communication with the plane was lost. Just before 8:14 a.m., the plane's crew failed to respond to an instruction to climb to 35,000 feet. The air traffic controller at the FAA's Boston Center who was handling Flight 11 tried repeatedly to contact the plane over the next 10 minutes, but without success. [9]

Boston Center controllers noticed a further indication of the emergency at 8:21 a.m., when Flight 11's transponder--the equipment that transmits identifying information about a plane to radar screens--was turned off. This, according to the Christian Science Monitor, was "something more worrisome" than the loss of radio contact. [10]

Then, at around 8:25 a.m., the controller handling Flight 11 heard a couple of suspicious radio transmissions, apparently made by a hijacker on Flight 11, which led him to conclude that the plane had been hijacked. At that point, the Boston Center began notifying its chain of command within the FAA of the suspected hijacking. [11]

A minute later, at 8:26 a.m., Boston Center controllers noticed Flight 11 drastically changing course, turning sharply to the south. [12] This was a significant development. Darrel Smith, an intelligence officer working at FAA headquarters that morning, has commented that he was particularly alarmed when he learned about it, because such a deviation was like "changing directions off I-95 north and heading south." Flight 11's change of course "jeopardized the other flights in the surrounding airspace," he said. [13]

AIRLINE RECEIVED EARLY NOTIFICATION OF THE EMERGENCY IN CALLS FROM FLIGHT ATTENDANTSAmerican Airlines, like the FAA, was aware of the crisis well before the first plane hit the WTC. At 8:19 a.m., Betty Ong, one of the flight attendants on Flight 11, contacted the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina, and, in a 25-minute phone call, relayed crucial information about what was happening on her plane. A couple of minutes after Ong's call began, a supervisor at the reservations office called the American Airlines System Operations Control Center in Fort Worth, Texas, and alerted it to the information that Ong was providing. And at 8:32 a.m., Amy Sweeney, another of the plane's flight attendants, reached the American Airlines flight services office in Boston. In a 12-minute phone call, she provided details of the crisis to the manager there.

In their calls, Ong and Sweeney made clear the seriousness of the situation. They reported that Flight 11 had been hijacked and that the hijackers were in the cockpit; two flight attendants had been stabbed; one passenger had his throat slashed and died as a result; and there was a bomb in the cockpit. [14]

But while American Airlines and the FAA knew details of the emergency early on, other agencies and facilities that should also have been closely following the crisis were unaware that anything was wrong. So when Mark Stuart, at NEADS, contacted a number of intelligence facilities, beginning shortly after the first plane hit the WTC, he found they had no information beyond what he already knew. [15] And David McNulty, at Andrews Air Force Base, has recalled that when he did the same, beginning several minutes after the second plane hit the WTC, he felt like he was "waking up the national agencies" and found that the agencies he called "had nothing to report." [16]

FBI'S OPERATIONS CENTER HAD KEY ROLE IN U.S. RESPONSE TO TERRORISMMark Stuart called the FBI's Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC) to report the hijacking of Flight 11. Stuart told the 9/11 Commission that he made the call at around 8:48 a.m. This was two minutes after Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. [17]

The SIOC should have been well suited to handling the 9/11 attacks. The United States Government Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan of January 2001 stated that the SIOC's role was "to coordinate and manage the national level support to a terrorism incident." [18] The purpose of the center, according to FBI officials, was "to keep the FBI updated on any crisis through sophisticated computers and communications equipment."

The SIOC, which opened in 1998, was a 40,000-square-foot facility on the fifth floor of the FBI's headquarters in Washington. It was designed to handle up to five crises at the same time, and, during a major emergency, could accommodate up to 450 people. [19]

The SIOC functioned as a 24-hour watch post and crisis management center. [20] It had 10-member watch teams on duty at all times. These teams included a representative from the NSA's Cryptologic Security Group, who could provide information from the government's worldwide electronic eavesdropping. [21] The center's 225 computer terminals had access to three types of local area networks: the regular FBI network that could connect to the networks of outside agencies; a classified network that operated at the level of Top Secret; and an even more highly classified Special Compartmented Information network. [22]

FBI agents and top officials, along with representatives from many other government agencies, went to the SIOC on September 11 in response to the terrorist attacks. [23] John Ashcroft, the attorney general at the time, told the 9/11 Commission that "the SIOC was the place to be to get information and so everyone wanted to be there." [24]

SOPHISTICATED OPERATIONS CENTER 'HAD NOTHING' ON THE ATTACKSAnd yet, despite the center's key responsibilities and its advanced capabilities, personnel in this state-of-the-art command post were apparently no better informed about the 9/11 attacks than members of the public watching the events on television. Stuart has recalled that when he called the SIOC, the center "had no information to pass that could shed light on the nature of the American Air 11 hijacking." Stuart was handed off to two or three individuals at the center. He explained to them what was happening and asked for law enforcement information. But, Stuart has said, "They had nothing." One of the people that Stuart spoke to said to him, "Oh shit, I have to go," and then hung up. [25]

Fred Stremmel, an FBI counterterrorism analyst, was in the SIOC when the attacks began and has described events there. According to his account, those in the center only realized the U.S. was under terrorist attack when they saw the second plane hitting the WTC on television.

Stremmel learned of the crisis that morning when a colleague in the SIOC told him about the first plane hitting the WTC. A crowd was watching the television coverage of the crash on a giant video screen, and Stremmel saw the second plane hitting the WTC when it was broadcast live, at 9:03 a.m. According to journalist and author Garrett Graff, at that time, "Everyone in the operations center stood there stunned." Stremmel has commented that after seeing the second crash on TV, those in the SIOC "probably knew it was terrorism, but we were in denial. It's like being told you have cancer. You want to deny it for as long as possible." [26]

Even the FBI's top officials were apparently no more aware of what was happening than members of the public were. FBI Director Robert Mueller was holding his daily briefing in his conference room at the FBI headquarters when the attacks began. All of the bureau's assistant directors were with him, including Dale Watson, the head of counterterrorism. They all learned of the crisis when someone interrupted the briefing and told them a plane had crashed into the WTC. However, they were initially unclear about whether this was a terrorist attack. "How could a plane not see the tower? It's so clear out today," Mueller reportedly said. Some of the group then went to the office of Deputy Director Thomas Pickard. There they saw the second crash live on television and realized for certain that this was terrorism. Only then did Watson go to his office and activate the SIOC for crisis mode, and Pickard and Mueller quickly made their way to the SIOC. [27]

Agents at the FBI's Washington, DC, field office were just as poorly informed. The Washington field office was one of the facilities David McNulty called after the second hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 175, hit the South Tower of the WTC. However, it could provide him with no additional information on the crisis. "It was a fruitless effort," McNulty has commented. [28]

PENTAGON INTELLIGENCE CENTER HAD 'NO ADDITIONAL RELEVANT INFORMATION'After calling the SIOC, Mark Stuart called the National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC) about the hijacking of Flight 11. [29] The NMJIC, which is located in the Joint Staff area of the Pentagon, constantly monitors worldwide developments for any looming crisis that might require U.S. involvement. [30] Agencies such as the CIA and the NSA have full-time representatives there. According to James Clapper, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, "During actual crises, NMJIC serves as a clearinghouse for all requests for national-level intelligence information." [31]

The NMJIC should presumably, therefore, have been aware of the crisis on September 11 from the outset. But when Stuart called the Air Force desk there, he found that the NMJIC "had no additional relevant information" it could provide him with. [32] Furthermore, personnel in the NMJIC appear to have remained poorly informed about the unfolding emergency after Stuart contacted them, and they were even unaware that their building had been hit when it was attacked at 9:37 a.m.

Marc Garlasco, a senior intelligence analyst at the Pentagon, was in the NMJIC on September 11. Garlasco has recalled that he was in a meeting that morning and only learned of the crisis when a colleague said to him, "Oh, you know, [the World Trade Center has] been hit." He then started watching the television coverage of the crash and therefore saw Flight 175 hitting the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.

However, when the Pentagon was attacked over 30 minutes later, Garlasco was unaware that his building had been hit. The NMJIC is on the opposite side of the Pentagon to where the impact occurred, so Garlasco did not feel or hear the explosion from the attack. More significantly, considering that the NMJIC presumably had advanced capabilities and also had a key role to play during an event like 9/11, those in the center apparently were not immediately informed of the attack on the Pentagon by any other means. Garlasco has recalled that he "was really still surprised when the boys in black pajamas ran into the office with their submachine guns and screamed, 'Evacuate, we've just been hit.'" (Presumably "the boys in black pajamas" were members of the Defense Protective Service--the law enforcement agency that guards the Pentagon.) [33]

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY LEARNED OF THE ATTACKS FROM CNNAnother agency we might reasonably expect to have been following the 9/11 attacks from the outset is the National Security Agency. This is one of the facilities that David McNulty contacted in his search for information. [34]

The NSA, at Fort Meade, Maryland, is responsible for collecting and analyzing foreign communications, and protecting U.S. government communications and information systems. Author James Bamford, an expert on the agency, called it "the largest, most secret, and most advanced spy organization on the planet." In 2001, it had around 38,000 employees, which was more than the CIA and FBI combined. [35]

And yet McNulty has recalled that when he phoned the NSA's "24-hour information desk" at some time after the second plane hit the WTC, "they knew nothing more than I did." McNulty has commented, "We were all getting our information from CNN." [36]

Even Michael Hayden, the director of the NSA at the time, was unaware of the crisis when the WTC towers were hit. Hayden was in his office, holding a routine meeting with a few senior agency officials, when he received his first notification of what was happening. His executive assistant came in and told him a plane had hit the World Trade Center. [37] Hayden thought the crash was probably a "horrible accident." [38] "The immediate image I had was a light plane, off course, bad flying," he has said.

Hayden walked over to his desk, on which a television was showing the coverage of the burning WTC. Hayden "thought that was a big fire for a small plane," he has recalled. All the same, he continued with his meeting. [39] Hayden only realized the U.S. was under terrorist attack when his executive assistant came in again, shortly after 9:00 a.m., and told him about the second plane hitting the WTC. At that point, he has recalled, "it removed all doubt from me ... that this had to be an attack." [40]

NSA'S 'WARNING BELL FOR A PLANNED ATTACK' LEARNED OF THE CRISIS FROM TVThe NSA's lack of awareness is particularly notable because the agency has a facility that is meant to detect when an attack is about to take place. The Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center (DEFSMAC), located in the NSA's main operations building, is intended to serve as "the nation's chief warning bell for a planned attack on America," according to Bamford.

DEFSMAC "serves as the focal point for 'all-source' intelligence--listening posts, early-warning satellites, human agents, and seismic detectors," and its analysts spend their time "closely monitoring all intercepts flooding in; examining the latest overhead photography; and analyzing data from early-warning satellites 22,300 miles above the equator." The center will then "flash the intelligence to the U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, and other emergency command centers."

A former NSA official explained that DEFSMAC "has all the inputs from all the assets and is a warning activity. They probably have a better feel for any worldwide threat to this country from missiles, aircraft, or overt military activities, better and more timely, at instant fingertip availability, than any group in the United States."

And yet DEFSMAC failed to pick up the signs of the 9/11 attacks. Bamford noted, "On the morning of September 11, DEFSMAC learned of the massive airborne attacks after the fact--not from America's multibillion-dollar spy satellites or its worldwide network of advanced listening posts, or its army of human spies, but from a dusty, off-the-shelf TV set."

DEFSMAC's failure would have had serious consequences. According to Bamford, "Upon receiving indicators that an attack was imminent, DEFSMAC officials would immediately send out near-real-time and in-depth, all-source intelligence alerts to almost 200 'customers,' including the White House Situation Room, the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, the DIA Alert Center, and listening posts around the world." [41] But because DEFSMAC failed to pick up signs of the 9/11 attacks, these "customers" would have lacked the early warning the center should have provided.

MILITARY INTERNET SYSTEM HAD NO RELEVANT INFORMATIONWhile they were seeking information on the terrorist attacks, an intelligence officer at NEADS and David McNulty at Andrews Air Force Base checked the "SIPRNET." [42] This is the U.S. Department of Defense's version of the Internet, which can handle classified information, up to the secret level. [43]

The SIPRNET should have been a valuable tool for keeping military personnel updated with the latest information on the attacks. Colonel Brian Meenan, the director of the military cell at the FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, explained the benefits of his unit having a SIPRNET terminal installed shortly before 9/11. He said that having the terminal meant "we could immediately look at NORAD and [Defense Department] plans as they evolved; filter, package, and format them, then walk out to the [FAA] national operations manager--who had control of the entire national airspace system--and give him current visibility into ... fighter, tanker, and support aircraft activities." [44]

And yet McNulty was unable to find out anything more from the SIPRNET than what he had learned from television. [45] At NEADS, Mark Stuart instructed a colleague to search the SIPRNET for information relating to the attacks. But Stuart has recalled that his colleague "found none that morning or afternoon." [46]

OTHER MILITARY UNITS HAD 'NO FURTHER INFORMATION'Stuart and McNulty contacted several military units as they sought information about the attacks, but without success. McNulty called the Air Combat Command Intelligence Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and the 609th Air Intelligence Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, but both were unable to provide him with any new information. [47] And Stuart, after contacting the NMJIC, called an intelligence officer with the 1st Air Force at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. But, Stuart has recalled, the 1st Air Force had "no further information" on the attacks. [48]

Other accounts reveal that personnel in the NORAD operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado--another key facility--were similarly unaware of what was happening. The Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC), according to NORAD, collected data "from a worldwide system of satellites, radars, and other sensors, and processes that information on sophisticated computer systems to support critical NORAD and U.S. Space Command missions." [49] The Toronto Star reported that the center's role was "to fuse every critical piece of information NORAD has into a concise and crystalline snapshot." [50] Airman described CMOC personnel as "the eyes and ears of North America," and stated that "nothing escapes their unsleeping watch." [51]

And since NORAD is the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending U.S. airspace, we might reasonably expect personnel in its operations center to have been very much aware of the crisis taking place in the skies over America on September 11. But, as officers who were on duty in the CMOC that day have made clear, this was not the case.

Lieutenant Colonel William Glover said that the morning of September 11 was his "first time ... thinking about the fog of war, because we didn't know what was going on." [52] Lieutenant Colonel Steven Armstrong recalled that those in the CMOC "were out there in an information void, just looking for anything that we could find." [53] Armstrong said, "The majority of the information we're getting at the time is literally off the TV." [54] And Major General Rick Findley commented, "We were a little bit behind the power curve most of that morning as we were trying to figure out exactly what transpired." [55]

WAS THE INFORMATION BLACKOUT CAUSED BY SABOTAGE?The evidence described above raises many questions that require serious investigation. Other facilities, besides those discussed here, were presumably in the same "information void" during the 9/11 attacks. Investigators and researchers should determine if this was the case. If it was, which facilities were affected, and what problems did they experience?

We also need to know when key facilities and agencies, such as those contacted by Mark Stuart and David McNulty, finally gained a greater awareness of the crisis and became able to make use of their own capabilities, rather than having to rely on television reports as their main source of information. And we need to determine what caused the information blackout. Have previous investigations looked into this? If so, what did they find?

If, as previously suggested, the lack of awareness within the U.S. government and military of the catastrophic events on September 11 was due to sabotage, this would have serious implications. The 19 young Arabs accused of hijacking four planes and carrying out the attacks would surely have lacked the capability to cause an information blackout across numerous intelligence facilities. Highly skilled individuals with knowledge and experience of how the military and intelligence agencies operate must presumably have been involved. If this was the case, it would mean that men who had worked for the U.S. military or U.S. intelligence agencies likely helped plan and carry out the 9/11 attacks.